Five highest-graded defenders (with at least 10 snaps): DE Aidan Hutchinson (90.2), LB Malcolm Rodriguez (83.1), DL Tyleik Williams (76.9), LB Derrick Barnes (73.4), DL Skyler Gill-Howard (71.6)
Five-lowest graded defenders (with at least 10 snaps): CB Rock Ya-Sin (46.1), DE Derrick Moore (53.3), DB Avonte Maddox (55.6), LB Jack Campbell (56.7), CB Keith Abney II (63.2)
Five highest-graded offensive players (with at least 10 snaps): OL Juice Scruggs (77.5), OL Christian Mahogany (76.8), OL Blake Miller (74.7), RB Jahmyr Gibbs (72.8), OL Penei Sewell (67.5)
Five lowest-graded offensive players (with at least 10 snaps): WR Isaac TeSlaa (49.1), TE Tyler Conklin (49.9), WR Jameson Williams (54.7), TE Brock Wright (56.6), RB Sione Vaki (56.8)
congrats to Miller. To lot only hold his own in game 1 but to be graded around the same as Sewell? Really impressive.
Speaking of recent first rounders…. I was wondering why Tyleik got so few snaps, but it’s clear he made a big difference in the snaps he did get. I like it.
Juice looked like he had some boo boos in real time but maybe those of us jumping on him in the game thread were a little too quick.
I’m extremely confident Jack Campbell will bounce back…. with that said Rodrigo and Barnes played really well. Our LB and DL seems ok.
That secondary though? Wooof all the way around.
Lastly… the WR depth (Teslaa) and RB depth (Vaki) are worrisome. We knew this but man those scores are fugly and confirm the eye test
I think there is one massive flaw in PFF grading. Well probably a few but I’ll focus on one.
PFF grading has no WPA (win probability added) influence on its grading. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
This is bonkers to me. Completely asinine. Take Derrick Barnes for example. He won the defensive game ball. And every single one of us that watched the game was like, yep. Why?
The interception, the sack, the underneath coverage on the game deciding two point conversion on the style of play that has murdered us for decades.
He had an immense impact on winning the game. And yet Rodrigo finishes with a higher grade bc your interpretation of his assignments and his handling of them was better? It’s silliness. The grades should reflect who had the biggest impact on the outcome of the game. And few had a bigger impact than Derrick Barnes.
For sure and there’s no way to refute that point. But it’s still a helpful reference point for some of us. Certainly not some end all, be all final all encompassing grade. Just something else to discuss outside of everyone and everything sucks lol
Exactly. Like I thought in real time that Juice had some big mistakes…, but that’s so hard to judge in real time. Clearly I was wrong in that assumption and I’m glad to learn that.
I scanned the PFF grades this morning and what astounded me was that Alim played for 83 snaps and predictably had a low grade, whereas Tyliek and SGH had 35 and 47, respectively with much higher grades. Interestingly, SGH had a good run defense grade and was only meh in pass defense.
Alim can’t be rode hard and put away wet like that and survive the season. How can a big guy recover in 4 days after that load?
This largely backs up what I thought I saw… OL was pretty good considering 2 backups played. DBs struggled, Moore was largely ineffective on the few plays I watched him.
Yep and Rodrigo played a lot of snaps with single gap responsibilities. So he played down hill a lot and was near the LOS more. It was obvious that’s how they used him. While Barnes had more read and react along with zone responsibilities so he wasn’t around the ball as much and was doing his job by dropping back for passes and staying in his zone, lane, ect.
My Issue with PFF is the games are inspected by people overseas and all those people have never played the game. They go through a very short training process on how to grade. They look at hundreds of snaps each weekend. So their grading very quickly. Their work is then spot checked by someone who actually knows what they’re doing here in the states. That person checks less than 2% of the actual grades made. Then that person sends the grades back to management to help train.
PFF has a high turnover of employees overseas. They pay them peanuts and these people are very similar to the people answering on the call centers over there. They suck at what they do….period.
I give PFF very little credibility. The NFL supports the program because they recognize the need for it and how it helps writers, podcasters, and sports talk to have content to report on. Most all of it is clickbait material that is designed to keep the NFL relevant all year long.
Every NFL team has a team of statisticians who inspect every game. Every assistant coach reviews his tape and his opponents tape for a reason. None of them give what PFF does in terms of grades any credibility.
Barnes had an awesome game and he should have a very high grade.
You weren’t wrong his play wasn’t consistent, his footwork needs to be better and he was out of position a few times. But he showed some promise. I’m concerned about his footwork. It’s gonna cost him some bad games if he doesn’t improve quickly.
this should be pointed out every time numbers are posted. pff has no idea who missed an assignment and left a safety to cover three people. only if the coaching staffs from both teams provided pff the play call and full assignment list, then you might have some numbers that meant something. otherwise, they are pretty random at best and potentially quite misleading
Right I just mentioned that in another thread. I have honestly never heard of a DT playing over 80 snaps in an nfl game. He must be so sore today. Probably can barely walk.
Miller is a good one, you can see how good his footwork is and how agile he is in space. The Lions are in really good shape at tackle and right guard going forward. I think there will be some bumps in the road this season especially in the interior but there’s a lot of upside with this group.
@Air2theThrown@thunderbuzzworth I totally get the concerns about the subjective stuff. Assignment unknowns, training quality, variance in application of the subjective, etc. Though I didn’t know about the overseas element. Makes sense given how cost prohibitive charting games is. But the idea of a Bangladeshi call centers with NFL+ premium being behind PFF is a humorous thought.
But my point was about the data. They are a data site supposedly. We have WPA for every play. Why not weight their assignment grades by that to some degree? Seems obvious to me and yet …
I don’t think Ben Johnson would be content with the performance of these players. Blocking on the perimeter is what turns 7 yard gains into housecalls.
Agree completely, the outside blocking wasn’t as good as it typically is. BUT these players have also shown an ability to do better than this (especially the WRs), so hopefully it gets sorted.